‘Expect To See A Band Of Soldiers’: Militia Members Arrive At Nevada Ranch

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that two militia members from Montana and one from Utah have arrived at Cliven Bundy’s ranch.

“We need to be the barrier between the oppressed and the tyrants,”
Ryan Payne of the West Mountain Rangers told the Review-Journal. “Expect
to see a band of soldiers.”

Payne said that militias from New Hampshire, Texas and Florida are likely to join and stand with Bundy and stay at his ranch.

“They all tell me they are in the process of mobilizing as we speak,”
Payne told the Review-Journal, adding that hundreds of militia members
are expected.

The Review-Journal also reports that Bundy’s son, Ammon Bundy, was
shot with a stun gun by law enforcement officers Wednesday and that the
rancher’s sister, Margaret Houston, was pushed to the ground.

“I pulled the tasers out of him,” Cheryl Teerlink told the Review-Journal.

Lawmakers are adding their voices into the fray, criticizing the
federal cattle roundup fought by Cliven Bundy who claims longstanding
grazing rights on remote public rangeland about 80 miles northeast of
Las Vegas.

Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada said he told new U.S. Bureau of Land
Management chief Neil Kornze in Washington, D.C., that law-abiding
Nevadans shouldn’t be penalized by an “overreaching” agency.

Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval pointed earlier to what he called “an
atmosphere of intimidation,” resulting from the roundup and said he
believed constitutional rights were being trampled.

Heller said he heard from local officials, residents and the Nevada
Cattlemen’s Association and remained “extremely concerned about the size
of this closure and disruptions with access to roads, water and
electrical infrastructure.”

The federal government has shut down a scenic but windswept area
about half the size of the state of Delaware to round up about 900
cattle it says are trespassing.

BLM and National Park Service officials didn’t immediately respond
Wednesday to criticisms of the roundup that started Saturday and
prompted the closure of the 1,200-square-mile area through May 12.

It’s seen by some as the latest battle over state and federal land
rights in a state with deep roots in those disputes, including the
Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s and ’80s.

Nevada, where various federal
agencies manage or control more than 80 percent of the land, is among
several Western states where ranchers have challenged federal land
ownership.

The current showdown pits Bundy’s claims of ancestral rights to graze
his cows on open range against federal claims that the cattle are
trespassing on arid and fragile habitat of the endangered desert
tortoise.

Bundy has said he owns about 500 branded cattle on the range
and claims the other 400 targeted for roundup are his, too.

BLM and Park Service officials see threats in Bundy’s promise to “do
whatever it takes” to protect his property and in his characterization
that the dispute constitutes a “range war.”

Kornze, the new BLM chief, is familiar with the area. He’s a natural
resource manager who grew up in Elko, Nev., and served previously as a
senior adviser to Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Reid aide Kristen Orthman said her boss “hopes the trespassing cattle are rounded up safely so the issue can be resolved.”

Sandoval, a former state attorney general and federal district court
judge, weighed in late Tuesday after several days of media coverage
about blocked roads and armed federal agents fanning out around Bundy’s
ranch while contractors using helicopters and vehicles herd cows into
portable pens in rugged and remote areas.

“No cow justifies the atmosphere of intimidation which currently
exists nor the limitation of constitutional rights that are sacred to
all Nevadans,” the governor said in a statement.

Sandoval said he was most offended that armed federal officials have
tried to corral people protesting the roundup into a fenced-in “First
Amendment area” south of the resort city of Mesquite.

The site “tramples upon Nevadans’ fundamental rights under the U.S. Constitution” and should be dismantled, Sandoval said.

BLM spokeswoman Kirsten Cannon and Park Service spokeswoman Christie
Vanover have told reporters during daily conference calls that
free-speech areas were established so agents could ensure the safety of
contractors, protesters, the rancher and his supporters.

The dispute between Bundy and the federal government dates to 1993,
when land managers cited concern for the federally protected tortoise
and capped his herd at 150 animals on a 250-square-mile rangeland
allotment.

Officials later revoked Bundy’s grazing rights completely.

Cannon said Bundy racked up more than $1.1 million in unpaid grazing
fees over the years while disregarding several court orders to remove
his animals.

Bundy estimates the unpaid fees total about $300,000.

He notes that
his Mormon family’s 19th century melon farm and ranch operation in
surrounding areas predates creation of the BLM in 1946.

Since the cattle roundup began Saturday, there has been one arrest.

Bundy’s son, Dave Bundy, 37, was taken into custody Sunday as he
watched the roundup from State Route 170.

He was released Monday with
bruises on his face and a citation accusing him of refusing to disperse
and resisting arrest.

A court date has not been set.

His mother, Carol Bundy, alleged that her son was roughed up by BLM police.

Meanwhile, federal officials say 277 cows have been collected.

Cannon
said state veterinarian and brand identification officials will
determine what becomes of the impounded cattle.

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